Scalability and Cloud: Scalability is a term that has been gaining increasing importance due to the dynamism of the market. Rapid changes require that everything be done in real-time and that each company is prepared to change strategies and increase capacity whenever necessary.
Faced with this need, evaluating resources in medium and long-term planning is important. Cloud computing is a possible solution in this context. If you want to understand how scalability relates to the cloud and reduces IT costs, continue reading this article.
What Is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is a paradigm that consists of the virtualization of computational resources in a distributed network. It is a growing technology that aims to help companies manage IT with simplified budgets and less inconvenience. Many think the cloud is just about storage because of platforms like Dropbox and Google Drive. However, the broader concept covers different resources, such as processing and memory.
The technology is associated with a service delivery model with infinite allocation in a decentralized network architecture. For example, a company provides access to a certain system, with expert support, for a fixed price. It is a solution proposed in contrast to data centers and complex physical infrastructures, which are generally exclusive to large companies. These architectures could be more flexible. Therefore, they need more space in the market.
What Is The Concept Of Scalability?
Scalability is the ability to meet the growing demand for products/services consistently and securely. It is related to cloud computing and is considered by many people as the main advantage of this paradigm. In a Deloitte survey, 75% of respondents stated that this is the main characteristic of the cloud.
That is, the concept is associated with the ease of managing internal resources in times of increased demand. After all, it is important to maintain good performance at times like these so the company can take advantage of opportunities to profit. A scalable IT supports the business whenever there is an increase in customer requests. Thus, the systems can deal with more simultaneous accesses without downtime and errors, with the same quality.
The Example Of E-Commerce
Consider, for example, e-commerce. Scalability in an online store is the ability to respond well to an unexpected increase in hits during a peak sales period such as Black Friday.
If there is a concern with this strategy, the site can automatically increase its processing capacity and memory to deal with the new scenario. Otherwise, the growth in the number of requests will probably take the site offline, and the company will lose several sales opportunities with increased user dissatisfaction.
If it depended on physical servers, for example, the corporation could even meet the growth in demand, but up to a certain point — the capacity limit of the machines. The idea of virtualization expands on this as with the decentralized network, and the capacity is unlimited.
Why Can Scalability Drive Cost Savings?
Next, let’s understand how scalability helps reduce IT costs.
Organization
When it needs to grow, a non-scalable IT sector yields a series of costs that are difficult to control and organize. In addition, the company often needs more resources.
Scalability helps plan and prepare for spending control with greater visibility and transparency. If a corporation thinks in the medium and long term, it can prevent loss of money in times of increased demand.
Elasticity
When it comes to updating a physical infrastructure, companies deal with many variables: components, cables, machines, and more space, among others. All this generates a lot of wasted time. However, if they choose cloud computing, they eliminate these costs and can automatically switch to a more robust environment. This is because scalability is associated with the concept of elasticity.
This term refers to the ability to quickly increase or decrease computing resources without making a noticeable difference to the customer and an operational bottleneck. That is, it is optional to bear personnel costs or time-consuming configurations. The process is simplified so that IT can, in a fluid and agile way, meet the needs of consumers.
Stability
Another advantage is stability even at peak boost. This is interesting because it helps eliminate expenses with support for repairing errors and server problems in a scenario of increased demand.
What Is The Role Of Scalability In Business Expansion?
In the same way, scalability helps in times of increased demand, and it facilitates business expansion planning. After all, organizing a budget and understanding exactly what tactics will be needed is possible.
Every business needs to grow to better serve its customers. This includes hiring, more physical space, and increased management complexity. Scalable IT contributes to predictable IT spending. This contributes to strategic planning, which deals with business goals and objectives.
The company will not need to purchase more space for physical servers, for example, or more equipment, such as cables and machines. In this way, it is possible to direct investments toward other needs. Thus, organizations can only implement expansion measures by maintaining huge data centers with powerful and expensive resources. Just upgrade to a bigger package. For small and medium-sized businesses, this is a huge advantage.
Also Read: Do I Need To Secure My Cloud-Hosted Servers And Services?